Three new papers in Westminster Advanced Studies series

WIAS has published three new issues in the Westminster Advanced Studies research paper series, all written by WIAS International Research Fellows.

These scholars have through their recently completed WIAS fellowships explored different critical facets of today’s digital media environments. From the open data movement over precarious young workers “doing what they love” in the video game industry, to the reproduction of online teaching materials, the new issues present quite the smorgasbord of critical digital and social media research.

During his fellowship, Arwid Lund has explored how ‘openness’ is understood ideologically by advocates within the Open Knowledge Network. WIAS No. 7 shows some of the fruits of this research, as he in his paper “The Open Data Movement in the Age of Big Data Capitalism” unpacks the case study he has conducted on the Open Knowledge Network’s perspective on openness in relation to private property and capitalism in the informational field.

In WIAS No. 8, Egin Bulut explores “One-Dimensional Creativity in the Video Game Industry: Towards a Marcusean Critique of Play”. Ergin’s paper integrates Herbert Marcuse’s historical critique of one-dimensionality with video game studies to ask what it actually means to “do what you love” (Tokumitsu 2015) in the digital game industry, which is often perceived as a perfect laboratory for realising this motto. His WIAS research project has focused on how we can understand intense labour practices in the digital game industry through the lens of political economy of communication and critical theory.